It’s slightly dated but has some useful general information on the subject of diagnosing performance issues and Extended SQL Tracing in Oracle that some may find useful, so I thought it might be worth posting it here. I stripped out most of the formatting so that the resultant file will be smaller to download.

Extended SQL Tracing has been absolutely invaluable over the years in diagnosing and trouble-shooting performance related issues. I had the very good fortune of attending a Hotsos Diagnosing Oracle Performance course in Sydney around 2003 (at the same time when Guy Sebastian won the first Australian Idol, ooops, probably shouldn’t have admitted remembering that) with Cary Millsap and Gary Goodman. It was a really fantastic training course which focused on the whole subject of “Method R” and using Extended SQL Tracing to diagnose performance issues. I also remember Steve Adams attending as well and thinking to myself, this guy really knows his Oracle …

If you haven’t already, I would strongly recommend checking out the Optimizing Oracle Performance book by Cary Millsap with Jeff Holt, an excellent read.